Hiking vs staying home and playing video games
"Why Some Men Don’t Work: Video Games Have Gotten Really Good"
I went hiking today because I think it's healthy to stop consuming news, and just get away once in a while. Plus I had the day off because of the long holiday weekend: Happy 4th of July!
I just wish I had more free time to explore Arizona beyond the mountains near the valley (see my Camelback mtn. picture above). That's why I found the article in the NYTimes (link and picture above) surprising.
According to the article, between 2004 and 2015, young men's leisure time grew by 2.3 hours a week. And a majority of that increase was spent playing video games.
I couldn't imagine staying at home playing video games instead of going outside and doing something interesting or productive. In all fairness through, who am I to judge you if your hobby is playing video games?
Nevertheless, I'll write about it, because (being a relatively young man myself) I've known coworkers, friends, and family in the age group described in the NYTimes article above. From what I've witnessed, some young men are able to play video games without it affecting their social life; one young man I knew even had his social life enhanced, and his new gaming girlfriend would defend the fact that he'd always be playing video games. Others played a lot of video games but eventually grew out of it and started families and careers. But in some cases, it does become a day and night obsession. This is anecdotal, but in the most extreme case, I knew a man over thirty who moved back to this parent's house, and despite being fired from his job for always being late, he'd still play video games all day.
I do love the graphics and the realistic design of modern video games, because I remember the primitive aspect of the old video games I used to play as a kid. This is probably why early on I decided not to play modern video games because I knew I'd probably get hooked. It seems to me that most young men did not arrive at the same conclusion, and instead chose to play video games consequences be damned.
No comments:
Post a Comment